Jen will
be on holidays from June 28th – July 16th, 2014. The
office will be open Tues/Wed/Fridays, 9 – noon. Brenda Schimke will be covering
the office 1 day a week, either Wednesday or Fridays. Please keep this in mind
when phoning the office. Thanks.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

This week a number of us at St. Margaret’s attended an event called
‘Launch Pad’, at which Michael Harvey spoke about our call as Christians to be
an invitational church. Michael, as you may know, is the founder of the ‘Back
to Church Sunday’ movement, which has taken root in churches all over the
world. The basic idea of ‘Back to Church Sunday’ is very simple; on a Sunday in
September, churches will hold a service to which members will invite friends
and family who do not normally attend church. So the heart of ‘Back to Church
Sunday’ is the simple act of invitation: one Christian going up to a
non-churchgoing friend and saying, “Would you like to come to church with me?”

This is nothing new, of course! Christian churches have been doing this
for years; when I was a teenager, in St. Leonard’s Church, Southminster in
southeast England, we used to hold regular guest services, and we were
encouraged to invite friends to join us on those days. Over and over again, it
has been shown that this is by far the most effective way to reach people with
the Christian message. I know a number of people who are Christians today, whose
Christian journey began when a friend invited them to come to church with them.
Michael Peers, who used to be the Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada,
often told the story of how, when he was a university student in Ottawa, a
friend invited him to church. Up until that point Michael had not been a
churchgoer or a practicing Christian, but that day he began a journey that led
him to faith in Christ, and eventually to offer himself for ordination as a
priest.

Of course, the thing that holds us back most often is fear of rejection.
At the launch pad events, Michael Harvey told the story of how, every day, he
makes ten phone calls to church leaders and bishops around the world, asking if
they would allow him to come to their diocese or region and talk with people
about being an invitational church. Nine times out of ten, the answer is ‘no’.
Michael says that he now knows that he has to get through nine ‘no’s before he
will get to a ‘yes’. But most of us are terrified of that ‘no’ – so terrified
that we won’t even try one
invitation, let alone ten. We let fear paralyze us, instead of remembering the
command from God that appears most often in the Bible: “Don’t be afraid”. Yes,
that is the command from God that is repeated most often in the entire Bible.

So I find it interesting that our gospel reading for today picks up this
theme! In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus warns his disciples that they will
certainly face opposition, and then he says, “So have no fear of them; for
nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will
not become known” (Matthew 10:26). A bit later on he says, “Do not fear those
who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (v.28). And then, talking about how
not even a sparrow can fall to the ground without our Father in heaven
noticing, he says, “So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many
sparrows” (v.31).

I think in order to understand what Jesus is saying to us here, we need
to take a step back for a minute and look at the big picture of this chapter of
Matthew. In fact, we need to go even further back. Look with me at the last few
verses of Matthew chapter 9, verses 35-38:

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every
disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he
said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore
ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest”.

So the
foundation of all this is the compassion of Christ. In his view, people who
have not yet heard his gospel message are ‘harassed and helpless, like sheep
without a shepherd’. This is a reference to several Old Testament texts that
talk about the people of Israel being scattered on the mountains ‘like sheep
without a shepherd’. What it usually means is that they have no leader, no
king, or that the leader they have is not caring for them properly. Jesus, we
know, saw himself as sent by God to be the Good Shepherd who would lay down his
life for the sheep; he would draw God’s people together as one flock under his
authority as God’s anointed King, and he would provide the tender care that
they needed.

This, of
course, is a challenge to us: do we
see people in this way? If we do, then sharing the gospel with others is not an
act of conquest, and if it comes across as an act of conquest, then something
has gone badly wrong! Sharing the Gospel is meant to be an act of compassion; it’s meant to be an
invitation to come to the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, and to
experience his tender care for us. To Jesus, this is an urgent issue, and he
encourages us to pray that God will send out more labourers into his harvest
field: in other words, more witnesses who will share their faith with others
and invite others to come to the Good Shepherd.

But what’s
the next thing Jesus does? At the beginning of chapter ten we read of how he
calls his disciples to him and gives them authority over the power of evil. He
then sends them out as travelling evangelists – in other words, ‘sharers of the
good news’. Their basic task is given in 10:7-8:

“As you go,
proclaim the good news, ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near’. Cure the sick,
raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without
payment; give without payment”.

So the
message is about the kingdom or rule of God: God is acting in power to heal the
hurts of the world and restore it to his original intention when he created it.
Jesus believed that God was doing this through his own ministry: he is the
Messiah (that’s what ‘Christ’ means), God’s anointed king, and God is working
through him to defeat the power of evil and establish the rule of love. That’s
what the healings are all about: they are demonstrations that God is healing
the hurts of the world and restoring it to the wholeness that is his will for
it.

Some of the
instructions in Matthew 10 are obviously related to the specific time and
situation: the sending out of the Twelve at that time without any money or food
or spare clothes or even shoes for their feet. Jesus does not repeat those
specific instructions at any other time, but there are several other times in the
gospels and Acts, as we’ve seen, where he sends his followers out to spread his
message. At the end of all four gospels we get some sort of command from Jesus
to go out and proclaim the good news, to make new disciples, to baptize them,
to teach them to follow Jesus. And we know that when the early Christians did
this, they didn’t go out in wealth and power, but in weakness and humility,
armed with nothing but the power of the Holy Spirit and the command to love
everyone they met.

And this
command still applies to us today. That’s what being an invitational church is
all about. It’s not just about getting more people to come to church; that
might be gratifying to our egos, but by itself it’s just a step on the way.
What Jesus wants is to spread the Kingdom of God by making more disciples, who
will commit themselves to following him and learning to put his teaching into
practice. And Jesus calls every one of us to participate in this; if the Holy
Spirit fills us, then we too can be witnesses for Jesus.

But then
Jesus goes on to confront the spectre of fear. He’s quite clear that his
followers should expect bad things to happen to them if they are faithful to
this command. What? We’re afraid that our friends might say ‘no’ to our
invitation to come to church with us? That they might even ‘unfriend’ us on
Facebook? That’s small beans compared to what Jesus warned his disciples about:

“Beware of
them, for they will hand you over to councils and flog you in the synagogues;
and you will be dragged before governors and kings because of me…Brother will
betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against
parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my
name” (10:17-18, 21-22a).

And later
on, in today’s passage, we’re told,

“Do not
think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring
peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a
daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother in law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household” (10:34-36).

So Jesus is
quite clear about this: being a witness for him will get us into trouble. Not everyone will be jumping for joy
because we are sharing the good news of the kingdom of God! Some people will
ask us to shut up about it. Some people will reject it. Some people will do bad
things to us because of it – much worse things than refusing our invitation to
Back to Church Sunday! And we’re to expect this. Jesus tells us that if we care
for the good opinion of father or mother or son or daughter more than him, then
we aren’t worthy of him. He is God’s anointed King; we are called to follow
him.

“So have no
fear of them”, Jesus says in verse 26. I don’t think he literally means ‘feel
no fear’. Fear is a natural bodily reaction to danger, and all of us feel it
from time to time. What I think Jesus is calling us to do is not to allow fear
to determine what we’re going to do.

Leonard
Cheshire, who was a British bomber pilot during World War Two, once talked
about what ‘courage’ actually is. He said that there are some people who
genuinely feel no fear; they are a small group, and they are actually a little
bit crazy. But there is a much larger group who feel fear to the full, but do
their duty nonetheless. That, he said, is what courage is. Courage isn’t
feeling no fear; brave people actually feel fear just as much as anyone else.
But brave people have made the decision that they are not going to let their
fear decide what they are going to do. They’ve made the decision that they are
going to do their duty, whatever happens.

So Jesus is
calling us to do the work that he wanted his church to do from the very
beginning: spread the gospel, invite people to become disciples of the Good
Shepherd, teach those new disciples how to follow him in their daily lives.
This is not an act of conquest; it’s an act of compassion, because people are
harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. It’s our job to help them
find their way home to the Good Shepherd.

So let me
finish with four instructions from Jesus for each of us.

First, trust in God. Look at what Jesus says in verses 29-31:

“Are not two
sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground
unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs on your head are all counted. So
do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows”.

Jesus is
talking to disciples who are about to go through great suffering for him, and
in verse 28 he says something that we might not find very encouraging: ‘Don’t
worry, boys, the worst they can do is kill you!’ But his point is that we are
totally secure in the love of the Father; even death can’t separate us from
God. Each one of us is infinitely valuable to the Father, and he will keep us
in his care. So the safest place for us, in the long run, is right at the
centre of his will. Trust in God.

Second, take up the cross. Look at verse 38:

“Whoever does
not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me”.

In the time of
Jesus, if you were carrying a cross it meant that the state was about to
execute you as a traitor and a rebel. So Jesus is saying, ‘Stand by to accept
suffering for your loyalty to me’. That’s what the cross is: it’s the suffering
that we go through because of our loyalty to Jesus, whatever that suffering
might be. Don’t run away from it; take it up and carry it willingly because of
your love for Christ. Take up the cross.

Third, stand up and be counted. Look at verses 32-33:

“Everyone
therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my
Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before
my Father in heaven”.

In other
words, don’t hide the fact that you are a Christian; be open about it. I spend
a lot of time with people who are outside of organized religion, and I notice
that people don’t respect you more if you’re so afraid of offending people that
you never say anything. Rather, they respect you if you have the courage of
your convictions, and they respect you even more if they can see that your life
matches your words. So don’t hide your light under a bushel: stand up and be counted.

Fourth and last, proclaim the message. Look at verse 27:

“What I say to
you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from
the housetops”.

Or, as the New
Living Translation puts it:

“What I tell
you now in the darkness, shout abroad when daybreak comes. What I whisper in
your ear, shout from the housetops for all to hear!”

This, of
course, is the simple promise that we make every time we participate in a
baptism service: ‘Will you proclaim by word and example the good news of God in
Christ?’ To which we all reply, “I will, with God’s help”. That promise doesn’t
allow us to take refuge in that pious-sounding phrase: ‘Some people talk about
their faith; I just live it”. The promise doesn’t just say ‘by example’, but ‘by
word’ too. Yes, we put our faith in Christ into practice, but we also use
words, whatever words we can find to tell people why we love Jesus and how they
can find their way to him as well.

So here are
the words from our Lord to us: trust in
God, take up your cross, stand up and be counted, proclaim the message.
And, of course, don’t be afraid. May
God the Holy Spirit give us courage and strength to put these things into
practice. And in case you’re wondering how
you can put them into practice, we’ll be doing Back to Church Sunday at the end
of September. Who might God be leading you to invite to join us on that day?

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Today in the
church year is Trinity Sunday, and preachers all around the world – those who
follow the lectionary, that is – will be scrambling to try to explain the
unexplainable to their congregations. Some people will bring out St. Patrick’s
shamrock with its three leaves; some people will point out that H2O can be ice,
water, and steam, all of which are still H2O. Some people will refer to the
ancient Christian creed called the ‘Creed of St. Athanasius’, which tries to
explain the doctrine of the Trinity. At one point it uses the phrase ‘The
Father incomprehensible; the Son incomprehensible; the Holy Spirit
incomprehensible’. Many Christians have been tempted to add ‘The whole thing incomprehensible!’

I believe in the
Trinity, and it’s part of the official doctrine of the Anglican Church. To me,
it’s an attempt to make sense of what the Bible teaches us about God, about
Jesus, and about the Holy Spirit. But I also believe that when we’re talking
about God, we need a large dose of humility. We’re tiny human beings living on
a tiny planet in God’s enormous creation; it’s not surprising if the Creator of
the universe sometimes seems a little hard to understand! The Bible talks about
the glory of God, and glory is often illustrated by light. To me, contemplating
the glory of God is a little like trying to look at the sun with the naked eye.
And that’s why I think we should be wary of attempts to define the Trinity too precisely;
after all, we’re screwing up our eyes to avoid being blinded by the light of
God’s glory, so it’s not surprising if we can’t always see too well.

With that in
mind, let’s turn to the last verse of our epistle for today, from 2
Corinthians. This is the closing greeting of the letter. Listen to what Paul
says:

‘The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be
with you all’ (2 Corinthians 13:13).

Paul is
describing the Trinity here in terms of our experience of God. He’s not giving
us an intellectual exercise; he’s inviting us into a deeper daily walk with
God. For each of the three persons of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit – he’s identifying what you might call a defining characteristic of the
way we experience them. The three characteristics are ‘grace’, ‘love’, and
‘koinonia’, a Greek word that’s hard to put into English; we might try
‘communion’ or ‘fellowship’ or ‘participation’ or ‘sharing together’. Let’s
think of these three defining characteristics, and our experience of them.

First, Paul talks
about ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ’. I once read that at a British conference on comparative religions,
experts were debating what, if any, belief was unique to the Christian faith.
The conversation went on for some time until C.S. Lewis wandered into the room.
“What’s all the fuss about?” he asked. When he heard that his colleagues were
discussing Christianity’s unique contribution to world religion, he replied,
“That’s easy – grace”.

What is ‘grace’?
Nowadays we tend to use it in the sense of ‘gracefulness’ – we might say that a
dancer moves gracefully, or that a person has a very graceful way of speaking.
But in the Bible it has a different meaning: it means unconditional love, love
that you don’t have to earn; it comes to you as a gift, because God is love.
It’s called ‘the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ’, because the life of Jesus
illustrates it so powerfully.

You may remember
that one day some Jewish leaders brought to Jesus a woman who had been caught
in the very act of adultery. They pointed out to Jesus that the law required
that someone caught in the act of adultery be stoned to death, and asked him
what they ought to do. Jesus simply replied, “Let the one of you who is without
sin be the first to throw a stone at her”. One by one they slipped away, the
oldest first. When they were all gone, Jesus looked at her and asked, “Where
are your accusers? Is no one left to condemn you?” She replied “No-one”. He
said, “Then neither do I condemn you. Go – and sin no more” (see John 8:1-11).
That’s grace, you see, and that was the sort of thing Jesus did all the time;
it was a defining characteristic of his life.

We see the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ most powerfully in the story of the cross. We think of
the pain of betrayal, the injustice of an unfair trial, the agony of
crucifixion. We can imagine how easy it would be in a situation like that to
scream with rage against your torturers. But Jesus doesn’t; he prays “Father,
forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). The one
who taught his disciples to love their enemies and pray for those who hated
them actually put his own teaching into practice. That’s what grace looks like.

Grace means that
instead of waiting for us to shape up, God takes the initiative, loves us as we
are, and walks beside us to help us change. As Philip Yancey expresses it,
grace means that there is nothing you can do to make God love you more, and
nothing you can do to make God love you less. God already loves you infinitely,
and he always will. That’s what God is like.

Secondly, Paul
talks about ‘the love of God’. I
find it interesting that Paul doesn’t follow the order we might expect: the
love of God, the grace of Christ, the communion of the Holy Spirit. He puts the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ first. Why? I think it’s because we Christians
come to experience God as Father through
Jesus. It’s Jesus who brings us into a living relationship with the Father.
‘Father’ was the distinctive name that Jesus used for God, and the name he
invited us to use as well.

Interestingly
enough, when Jesus talks to his disciples in the Gospels about ‘your heavenly
Father’, it’s often in the context of God providing for their needs. For
instance, in Matthew 6:6-7 he says,

“When you are
praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that
they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your
Father knows what you need before you ask him”.

The idea is that
God is a good Father who knows the needs of his children and will provide for
them. He provides for them by setting the world up in such a way that, if we
use its resources wisely and justly, it will give us the necessities of life.
And he also promises to hear the prayers of his children and give them their
legitimate needs.

The problem, of
course, is that God and I are not always agreed on what constitutes a
legitimate need! I suspect that when God balances the need to bring an end to
child poverty around the world against my perceived need for a vacation in
Florida, child poverty might be slightly higher on his priority list! And of
course no good father gives his children everything
they ask for! What if your twelve year old comes asking for the keys to your
car? But try explaining to them that your refusal is for their own good!

So our wise and
loving God has promised to provide for our legitimate needs. How do we tap into
this resource? Jesus gives us the answer in Matthew 6:33:

“But strive first
for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be
given to you as well”.

Paradoxically,
our needs are met when we focus our life on something higher than our own needs
– on God and his kingdom. We’re told to make God’s kingdom the core value of
our lives, which means working to implement his will in our personal lives, in
our homes and families, in our communities, our country and the world. When we
lay down our worries and put God’s concerns first in this way, he promises to
look after us.

Let me tell you a
story about this. Andrew van der Bijl was a Dutchman who travelled to Scotland
to go to Bible College in the 1950’s. He had almost no money and had many
experiences of God providing for him when he was at the end of his resources.
One day when he had no money left at all, a beggar knocked on his door and
asked for help. The beggar was not a stranger to him; he was someone Andrew had
helped in the past. As they were talking at his doorstep, Andrew looked down
and saw a coin on the ground at his feet. Then began the struggle; he wanted
that coin for his own needs! But eventually the voice of conscience won out; he
stooped down, picked up the coin, gave it to the beggar and sent him away.
Later that morning the mail came, and in it there was a cheque from a friend,
which was more than enough to cover Andrew’s needs for the next few weeks! You
can read this story and many others like it in Brother Andrew’s book God’s Smuggler.

So this is what
God is like, and this is how we experience God. We come to God as broken
people, as sinners needing forgiveness. We might expect a holy God to turn us
away, but he doesn’t; he forgives us and accepts us and pours out his grace on
us. This is what we mean by ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ’, the friend of
sinners. And then there is the love of God, the good father who provides for
the legitimate needs of his children and challenges us to seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness. Mind you, I sometimes think most of us in Canada
are too well off to be able to experience that part of God’s character! Those
who hardly have a penny to call their own, like Brother Andrew in the story I
told you, have no option but to trust in God, and they tend to be the ones who
tell the amazing stories of God’s provision for them.

The third thing
Paul talks about is ‘the communion of
the Holy Spirit’, or, in the more familiar translation, ‘the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit’. What’s this all about?

The Greek word
‘koinonia’ means ‘sharing together in something’ or ‘having something in
common’. I belong to the folk music community in Edmonton, which is made up of
many different kinds of people – rich and poor, young and old, liberal and
conservative, people born in Canada and immigrants like me. We’re a very
diverse group, but we have ‘koinonia’ with one another because we all love folk
music. The thing that we have in common is so important to us that it can help
us get past our diversity and shape us into a real community.

So what is the
‘communion’ of ‘fellowship’ or ‘sharing together in’ the Holy Spirit. I think
there are two things here we might like to think about.

First, the gift
of the Holy Spirit enables us to share in the life of God. In John’s Gospel
Jesus often uses the language of being ‘in’ someone; he talks about the Father
being in the Son, and the Son being in the Father, and he also talks about the
Holy Spirit being ‘in’ us. This is obviously describing a deep sense of
connection that we have with God. The Holy Spirit is God, and the Holy Spirit
makes his home in us and in all who believe in Jesus. And so, in a sense, we
are caught up in the life of God; the Father is in the Son, the Son is in the
Father, the Holy Spirit is the love they share together, and God puts that love
in us so that we too experience the love of God by the Holy Spirit.

As we saw last
week on the Day of Pentecost, the New Testament believers experienced a
‘baptism’ in the Holy Spirit – not a water baptism, but an immersion in the
power and love of the Holy Spirit, something that transformed them and gave
them the power to be witnesses for Christ. This isn’t just a one-off thing;
it’s something we’re called to grow in every day. “Go on and on being filled
with the Holy Spirit”, says Paul in Ephesians 5:18. And so we pray each day
that he will fill us, and then we walk through our day intentionally trying to
keep in step with him.

So the Spirit
lives in us and fills us and helps us to share in the life and love of God. But
the Holy Spirit also creates a human fellowship, a community of people who all
share in the gift of the Spirit. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13:

‘For just as the
body is one and has many members, and all the members of body, though many, are
one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of
one Spirit’.

This is the thing
we have in common, you see – that deep down in our hearts, God is alive in us
by his Holy Spirit. So when I look at you, I don’t only see a human being: I
see a human being who is a temple of the Holy Spirit. We may have different
jobs and different backgrounds and different opinions, but at the deepest level
of our lives, we’re one with each other, because the one Spirit lives in all of
us and draws us together.

And of course,
that can’t be just a nice idea or a feeling; it has to be earthed in real
practice as well. How do we preserve the unity of the Holy Spirit? The book of
Acts tells stories of how the early Christians did it. Those who were well off
sold their excess houses and lands and brought them to the apostles, and the apostles
distributed them to the poor and needy.

What would that
look like for us today? Imagine if the world saw a Christian church where those
who were better off sold their vacation properties or their huge houses,
embraced a simpler lifestyle, and gave the money to the church – not to build a
bigger building or hire more staff, but to share with members of the
congregation who were poor? That’s what the early Christians did, and that’s
why so many people were attracted to their community. They saw that the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit wasn’t just an idea; it was a concrete reality
and it led to practical actions of love and care for one another. All of which,
of course, shows the world what God is like.

Let’s go round
this one last time. Trinity Sunday is reminding us of what the Gospel is, and
what the Gospel calls us to. The Gospel is all about the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ: God loves us infinitely and
unconditionally, forgiving us and restoring us to fellowship with him. The
Gospel is all about the love of God,
the one Jesus called ‘Father’, the one who provides for his children, the one
who assures us that if we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, the
things we need will be provided for us. And the Gospel is all about sharing in the Holy Spirit, so that God
himself comes and lives in us and draws us into a real community of love – love
that isn’t just an idea, but a practical reality, shown by the way we care for
one another, and share with each other, and provide for each other’s needs.

This is what God
is like. This is what the Gospel is all about, and so, brothers and sisters,
may ‘the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion
of the Holy Spirit be with you all’! Amen.

10:30 am Holy Communion and Sunday School Wrap Up Sunday School Weiner
Roast

On Friday
June 20th, St. Margaret's are preparing and serving lunch for the Habitat for Humanity building crew at
the Neufeld Landing site in Rutherford.Drop off prepared food items by 10:30 am at the church and if you are
serving please arrive by 11:30 am. Thank you!

Winnifred Stewart: Empties to Winn Project

Please feel free to bring some or all of your empty
bottles (juice, milk, cans, and other beverage containers) and drop them in our
bag. We have special bags to take home if you wish or you can bring your
empties in plastic bags! Please support this project supporting Winnifred
Stewart! Next pick up is June 27th, 2014

Whether clergy or lay,
we’d love for you to join us at the National Worship Conference, July 20-23, at
Providence Renewal Centre in Edmonton, AB. Offering an exceptional selection of
over 20 workshops and high caliber presenters, this conference is an
opportunity to explore transformative and meaningful worship.

·Celebrating for the sake of the world (How can we
design liturgy that makes a difference in people’s lives?)

·Messy Church: for those who love a good mash-up

·A FREE OPTIONAL WORKSHOP will be offered immediately
following the Conference on Wed, July 23, from 12-4 pm, at Providence - Exploring
the New Rites: Roundtable with Faith, Worship & Ministry and the Liturgy
Task Force is an opportunity to hear firsthand about the exciting new
liturgies being released for trial use in the Anglican Church of Canada later
this year. All are welcome! Visit www.nationalworshipconference.org/workshops for a complete list and description of
workshops.

Several events open to the
general public will be offered in conjunction with the conference:

Friday,
July 18 and Saturday, July 19: Concordia
University College is
hosting the worship and music symposium "Come to Us, Creative Spirit" to be led by David Cherwien. Musicians will be
able to play for Cherwien and receive practical feedback. The symposium will
also include an organ crawl through Anglican and Lutheran parishes to hear some
of the best pipes in Edmonton.

Saturday,
July 19: Linnea Good will present the
workshop "Worship Music, with Families" at Holy Trinity Anglican
Church in Old Strathcona.

Sunday,
July 20: A preaching festival, featuring
Paul Fromberg at Holy Trinity Old Strathcona and Ruth Meyers at All Saints'
Cathedral will be offered

Wed,
July 23, 12-4 pm: FREE
OPTIONAL WORKSHOP will be offered immediately following the Conference. Exploring
the New Rites: Roundtable with Faith, Worship & Ministry and the Liturgy
Task Force: An opportunity to hear firsthand about the exciting new
liturgies being released for trial use in the Anglican Church of Canada later
this year. All are welcome!